


To do list

by hwasunny



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: First Love, First Time, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Party, Teen Angst, Teen Romance, Teenagers, happy end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-17
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 22:48:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,286
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25340392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hwasunny/pseuds/hwasunny
Summary: Pushing himself into the cage with his own hand, trying to find the ideal, Seonghwa completely forgets what it's like to be a teenager. All his days are busy thinking how to become an improved version of himself and fulfill all the planned to-do lists. But the acquaintance with a sensitive dreamer was not included in his plans at all.A story about two imperfect people tied by one pair of headphones on a leather sofa.
Relationships: Park Seonghwa & Kim Hongjoong, Park Seonghwa/Kim Hongjoong - Relationship
Kudos: 42





	To do list

**Author's Note:**

> This work was inspired by the story of Seonghwa from Ateez “Diary Film”. I’ll be pleased to see your kudos and reviews about it 👉👈  
> Song: Papillon — Yurima.

In Seonghwa's life, everything was scheduled minute by minute and memorized. He got up exactly on the alarm clock at 6:30, had breakfast in fifteen minutes, and the road to school never took him more than the allotted time, no matter what. Why?

Seonghwa is a perfectionist.

He also wants to be _perfect._

He does not remember where, why and when exactly this strange habit and obsession with the schedule and control of his own life appeared: when the walls of his own room began to be covered with a lot of notes, and the drawn up schedule took up more place in his head than important dates, for example days birth of family members. Park could immediately answer what he was doing on Thursday after school and how long it took, but when asked about his grandmother's birthday, he would have fallen into a stupor, and his cheeks would have become the color of ripe strawberries. Which he ate every summer only on certain days in order to stock up on energy and not overdo the amount of calories that the body receives. Don't ask how long it took him to calculate it, just because it was necessary.

Even for friends, there was a separate schedule for walking and doing - or it would be if Seonghwa made friends with at least someone starting from elementary school. And now, it is worth noting, he has entered the final year of the school, already with might and main starting to prepare for the upcoming exams. His only friends are notes, written in neat black pen and pinned behind carnations above the desk.

And Seonghwa also has a so-called _"to do list"._

He borrowed such an organization from some American series that was on TV in the living room on a weekend, and it became so boring that the lists appeared immediately. But they didn't end with the standard "go to the movies for a new movie" or "take out the dishes."

For example, one of the items on his list was **“fall in love”**. Immediately after “watch youtube” and “wash”. Oh, and you shouldn't forget about “get a dog”.

Seonghwa was too used to this kind of life, trying piece by piece to build his ideal version, which some would perceive as a soulless machine, that he completely forgot that he was an ordinary teenager of seventeen. But Park still believed that he could become what he wanted, and at the same time attract people, showing how good he became.

But there are no ideal people.

We all teach to accept each other's shortcomings, because they make us human. We all learn from mistakes, trying to become better, but some disappear - new ones appear.

The occasional party that Seonghwa attended at the invitation of a classmate was also a mistake. The guy can't even understand why he agreed and suddenly found himself in an old house full of alcohol and people dancing along them to loud music.

He is not at all a fan of such events, because it is noisy and a huge number of strangers here, and he is still not perfect. The thoughts that he is not trying well enough and not making every effort have already settled in his head on a constant basis. If he was just a little ... what? Serious, collected, rational? Then he would have been a level higher.

_Perfect. Perfect. P-e-r-f-e-c-t._

What a stupid word.

And the same dumb Seonghwa trying to follow his principles.

Only when in the hands of a brunette is a red plastic cup with alcohol, handed over by a classmate, such a hackneyed attribute of any party from teenage series, Park suddenly remembers why he was here, among strangers.

"Go to a party" on his list can now be considered complete. Now he would also like to understand what he need to do in order to fully enjoy what is happening and not feel uncomfortable in such an atmosphere.

Noticing in the crowd a tall guy in a black leather jacket, whose hair shimmers in every possible shade of peach and pink, Seonghwa gathers the resolve to walk up to him and start a conversation that will probably last more than two minutes. The boy looks too friendly and smiling for such a broken and soaked place with broken teenagers, so Park inhales heavily again and begins to maneuver between the dancing bodies, trying not to spill the the glass, which he has not even touched yet and probably will not.

”H-hello?l Seonghwa is surprised at how his own voice trembles and sounds insecure, but the interlocutor does not seem to notice this again, smiling affably, and small sparks play in his eye. "Would you like to... um... chat?"

“Hi.” The stranger covers one eye and a crease creeps in between his eyebrows. “Damn, it's too loud here and I can hardly hear you.”

“I asked if you want to chat?” Not so hesitantly, but still says Pak softly and covers his ear with one hand, also frowning. After all, this guy is right - it's too loud, and Seonghwa feels like his head is going to explode with new sensations.

“Damn, I'm sorry, I can't hear you again.” The peach boy looks around the audience and suddenly raises his eyebrows in surprise, and then looks at the brunette, starting to speak louder. “You know what. I'll see you on the second floor in twenty minutes, it's much quieter. I need to meet my friend now and make sure he's still alive.”

“Ummm…” Seonghwa turns and finds the stairs leading upstairs with his eyes, and then looks at the guy again, and also raises his voice, “Okay. In twenty minutes?

“Yes.” He literally shines and smiles even more charming. “By the way, I'm Yunho.”

“Seonghwa. Nice to meet you.”

“Me too”. Yunho suddenly jumps up in place and raises his hand with the glass upward, miraculously not splashing the drink. “Hey, Jongho!”

Park realizes it's time to leave and pulls the phone out of his black jeans pocket, turning the screen up to maximum brightness to see at least something. Only 19:47, and he is already tired and wants to lie back on a soft bed at home, before that he crossed out another item from his to do list with a red pencil and bring this day to the end so that tomorrow he will do something useful.

The floorboards creak under their own weight and Seonghwa wonders how they do not fall through and crumble to pieces - the house is not old, but neglected, so it is possible that it is just abandoned, or it is some kind of summer house. With each step the noise of the music dies down, but does not disappear completely, and breathing becomes freer and the brunette finally breathes in deeply. His eyes begin to close treacherously from such a change in mood, and Pak is already looking with his eyes for some secluded place where he could rest.

In a room that serves as a semblance of a living room, there are at most seven people, but they are all so carried away by conversations with each other that they do not notice a new face in their circle at all, continuing to communicate. Searching for furniture, Seonghwa's gaze stops at the only empty spot - a black leather couch, but unfortunately already half occupied by another guy. Suddenly, fatigue in the legs makes itself felt and Park has no choice but to walk to the sofa and sit next to the stranger, but far enough away so as not to raise questions.

Seonghwa sets the glass down on the empty coffee table and leans back, throwing her head back and finally closing her eyes in blissful delight. Finally, he is alone with his own thoughts and can ponder the little that happened.

But many people found themselves in such an environment: full of alcohol, soft drugs and noise, hot bodies and passions for one night. Seonghwa is not at all like he wants to become the "center" of a small universe. He did not know the reasons for his own fear, but he was constantly worried about his actions and their quality.

Poor self-esteem does not give a sensible assessment of one's own actions and always notices only disadvantages, even if there may be many more advantages.

And Seonghwa did not realize that his pursuit of an ideal and constant control was nothing more than one manifestation of low self-esteem and self-dissatisfaction.

His framework of perfection is a prison built by his own hands.

“Are you always so brooding and sad?”

A sudden voice from somewhere from the side brings the brunet out of his own thoughts and he reluctantly turns his head to one side in order to see the violator of his peace. The kid nearby. Yes, of course.

He is the complete opposite: blue, slightly wavy hair, a huge amount of piercings in his ears, from which Pak involuntarily swallows a lump in his throat, imagining how painful it was to pierce it all, fragile facial features, against which a small snub nose stands out clearly. The boy was wearing a chunky white T-shirt decorated with many colored spots apparently left by hand, black frayed jeans with slits in the knees, and black boots with heavy soles that, as Seonghwa thought, could kill. Next to him was a bluish backpack, from a pocket of which several buds of purple-white flowers, more like lilies, were sticking out. In his hands the stranger was holding a telephone with headphones, one of which was still in his ear.

Even the energy that emanated from him - distant and somehow extraterrestrial, as if he was not at all at a noisy party right now - was completely unfamiliar to Seonghwa.

“Why are you asking?” Asks the dark-haired and turns a tired look at the sudden interlocutor, and he just shrugs and throws his head back.

“You’re tense, as if you’re not at all used to such events.” He combs the blue strands back with one hand and sighs heavily, “Me too, but my guys dragged me here.”

“Well, you guessed it,” Seonghwa suddenly agrees to himself, “I'm not a fan of this kind of parties. Yes, and in general I have not been to them until today.”

“It's much quieter here than on the first floor, isn't it?” The guy turns his head to one side and closes one eye, with the other staring at such an exquisite profile of the brunette and involuntarily sticking. Beautiful. “As if you find yourself in a completely different world, which is fenced off from such a familiar teenager. You just sit in a vacuum box, where nobody cares about you.”

«Are you high or just a dreamer?» Even though Seonghwa didn't know how popular drugs work, this guy could easily be confused with a drug addict or just a spoiled teenager, judging by his vague state.

«Offend me. Second.” The boy blows his lips and covers his eyes completely, only to then sharply open them and raise his head, literally staring at the person next to him. _“Who are you?”_

“What do you mean?” Seonghwa wonders, and in his head the gears are working with an increased load.

“If I asked not to give my name, but only who are you, what would you say?” The blue-haired man asks with a grin and changes the song on the phone, continuing to beat the melody with his fingers on the display.

And Seonghwa really thinks. _Who is he?_

Definitely not a dreamer, but not a realist either. Not a pessimist or an optimist. He cannot choose one of the two sides of the coin, and only one is spinning in his head.

He is the one who strives for the ideal.

"Mmm... a perfectionist?" Biting his lower lip, says Park and exhales heavily. “Maybe yes. I want to be closer to something perfect.”

“You're boring, perfectionist.”

The kid changes the song again and snorts, continuing to stare at the guy opposite.

“Why?”

“Your ideal is constantly changing and you are constantly raising the bar, but it is endless. The higher the stake, the more impossible you demand from yourself.”

“Why do you think so, dreamer? The ideal sets me levels that I strive to overcome.” Seonghwa begins to get interested in the conversation and literally devours his opponent's gaze, intending to prove his position.

“You will never be enough. What you thought was good will cease to be and you will try to improve it, but the ceiling of the ideal does not exist. For example, for me my ideal height is to be at least 180 cm tall, but with my 171 and boots with a sole of seven cm I can only be 180 in a jump.”

“But you will be close to ideal, so what's the problem?” Park is still perplexed, because for the first time he meets logic that is so simple, but at the same time difficult for him to understand.

“Now my sole is seven, but soon I will want to buy boots with ten, and then with twelve. Also with the ideal - no matter how close it seems to you, perfection will still increase exponentially, as long as you rise slowly or even stand.”

In some ways, perhaps he is right. But Seonghwa will ponder this more carefully later, and now the conversation with the dreamer dragged him out so much that he wanted to know more about this person - anyway, that soon Yunho will come, because of which he was originally on the second floor. As the boy said, they are in their own vacuum and are not distracted by anyone other than the person concerned opposite.

“And what is your perfection, dreamer?”

“Mine?” A smile pops up on his face, and then a ringing laugh is heard and he closes his eyes, propping his cheek with his palm. “I don't have it.”

“Really?” Pak is surprised, because in his opinion, everyone has some set bar that needs to be achieved.

“Yeah, really.” The blue-haired man loudly sucks in air through his nose, trying to breathe deeply and Seonghwa already anticipates a long monologue. “No one is perfect, no matter how much he wants to admit it. Me, you, that girl in the corner and the people downstairs - we all have flaws. If you try to fix one, another will appear, this is a regularity of the universe. We all exist in constant motion and it is impossible to fix something for a definitely long moment.”’The dreamer looks at the phone screen and reads the name of the playing melody. “This is the same as trying to learn many songs: the more you know, the more likely you are to forget something from the old, even a small fragment. Nothing is permanent except the changes themselves.”

And Seonghwa is starting to think seriously, for the first time this evening, and apparently for all the last time. He sits for several minutes in complete silence and creates the feeling that he is not breathing at all, moving away from everything that happens and flying away into his own subconscious.

“Would you like to listen?” The guy holds out one earpiece to Pak and in his eyes you can see nothing but an enveloping warmth. “I always think better with music.”

Seonghwa shrugs and takes the earpiece from the dreamer's fragile fingers, sticking the device into his ear and tilting his head back again, not covering his eyes this time. The melody is calm, completely without words, and it seems to carry away with the flow of thoughts further, to those bins that you did not know about.

_Nothing is permanent except the changes themselves._

Will he be able to finally change? So, how does it represent in your head? Or will there always be discontent, but will they simply change or even decrease? And what if all this time his established framework was really wrong, and the writing on the walls of his own room is nothing more than a failed attempt to control everything beyond his control?

_Seonghwa is only sixteen and has already fucked up._

He will not be able to make a deliberate high jump, no matter how he tries. And all his to-do lists are nothing more than attempts to control an uncontrolled future, which is not even known what it will be. Will he do well on his exams, will he go where he wanted to, or will things go awry? He does not know.

The other's palm gently rests on top of his own, and Seonghwa doesn't even push away as much pleasant warmth as needed now. This person - unusual to the core, completely different and extraterrestrial - made him think about things that had never raised doubts before, literally destroyed the erected wall with just one dialogue.

Now Seonghwa does not consider this party a mistake, as he brought out something new for himself and met _him_.

“You are not a dreamer, but a philosopher.” With a grin breaks the silence of the brunette and turns to face the person sitting next to him. “Thanks. You really helped me think about whether I'm doing everything right in my life.”

“Don't thank me, this moment would come sooner or later, I just pushed you a little.” The interlocutor also smiles and straightens the naughty strands. “Well who are you? Perfectionist or someone else?”

" _Seonghwa_." Park says, "And you, dreamer?"

“ _Hongjoong_. Nice to meet you.”

Sitting on a leather sofa in the middle of a noisy party, sharing some headphones and a melody, they found each other quite unexpectedly.

One of them is an imaginary perfectionist who painted his whole life in order. Another is too confused and hovering in the clouds dreamer, realizing his own mistakes, who wants to help people.

We learn through others: through their support, words, actions. It is very difficult to live in this world alone, but now they have each other.

  
A year later, they will be sitting in an old barn, and they will be surrounded by six restless teenagers whom they perceive to be their own younger brothers or even children. On the same leather sofa they safely bought out of that house, Seonghwa will sit, wearing a large white shirt and with an adventure book in his hand, while Hongjoong will feed him crackers with his head on the brunette's shoulder.

Wooyoung and San will sit opposite and talk about something sweetly, sometimes interrupting the dialogue with a lively laugh of the first, from which the soul becomes warm and cozy at home.

Jongho and Yunho will sit at the table playing armwrestling and Yunho will once again lose and pout, but then smile kindly and ask for another round.

Yeosang and Mingi will stand in front of tall mirrors and actively discuss some kind of movement pattern, arguing about the correctness of the execution and showing various options.

And after another kiss from Seonghwa on the cheek and stroking the blue hair, Wooyoung will ask again if they are dating, to which these two will remain silent and smile. It happened behind the scenes, and they really will not remember when. They don't need to talk about their own feelings to know about it - they just understand their affection and emotions that relate to each other.

The day Seonghwa invited Hongjoong to his home to safely remove all the schedules and notes from the walls, Park took the note off the wall and crossed out one of the paragraphs and smiled before crumpled and discarded.

**_“Fall in love.”_ **


End file.
